Deadly balloon crash latest blow to Egyptian tourism

CAIRO -- A hot air balloon carrying foreign tourists exploded over the southern Egyptian city of Luxor on Tuesday morning, killing at least 18 people.

The balloon's gas supply caught fire as it hovered over sugar cane fields at dawn, causing an explosion that sent the balloon and its passengers plummeting nearly 1,000 feet, the state news wire MENA reported, citing an unnamed security official. An employee of the balloon operator, Sky Cruise, said that balloon had been in the process of landing, but was pushed back into the air by the wind, snapping the the gas pipe.

The dead include tourists from France, Britain, Japan, Hungary, and China, a security official said. One British passenger and the balloon's pilot survived, but were in critical condition.

The accident marks the latest blow to an already crippled tourism industry in Egypt, two years after a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak.

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Egypt's millennia-old pyramids, ancient temples, and dazzling Red Sea beaches historically have drawn millions of tourists each year, including 14.7 million in 2010, the year before the uprising. But political instability and deep insecurity on Egypt's streets since Mubarak's fall have ravaged the tourism sector, a pillar of the economy.

Tourism revenues in Egypt dropped 30 percent to $8.8 billion in 2011, following the uprising in January and February. Government officials reported a slight resurgence in those numbers in 2012. But many Egyptians working in the tourism sector complain that income remains stagnated amid rising inflation; as a result, Egyptians who rely on tourist dollars are increasingly desperate about their livelihoods.

Across the country, anger at Egypt's newly elected Islamist government and its failure to bring economic and political stability to the country has fueled a rising tide of violent protests and clashes, which further threaten the tourism sector. Earlier this month, the State Department issued a travel alert for Egypt.

The balloon accident is the latest in a series of deadly incidents involving tourists. Fatal road and train accidents are common in Egypt, due to badly maintained infrastructure and poor law enforcement. And French, German, and Russian tourists were among those killed in road crashes in the past five months alone.

At the same time, an increase in sexual harassment and assault on Egypt's streets has added to the fears of women travelers.

Luxor, the site of the balloon blast, is home to some of Egypt's most prized ancient sites, including the Valley of the Kings, where the tombs of pharaohs such as Tutankhamen have been unearthed.

But local residents said security fears in the aftermath of Egypt's revolution have cut the number of visitors by more than half, and some worried Tuesday that the latest accident would see numbers drop further.

"Before the revolution, we would have been fully booked or overbooked," said Alaa Eldin al-Sahaby, the manager of the Nefertiti Hotel and Aladin Tours, a local tour operator that sells hot air balloon rides and other excursions out of Luxor. Al-Sahaby said his company used to manage at least two big tour groups in the country on any given day. "Now I'm lucky if I happen to get one group every two months," he said.

Ahmed Hassan, an operator at Sky Cruises, the company that owned the balloon involved in Tuesday's deadly accident, said that all eight of the companies running balloon rides in the city would likely "shut down for a while" because of the incident.